I have seen every Predator movie except for the prequel and every Alien vs. Predator movie and I think it’s safe to say that this one, for most of its runtime, is the most intentionally funny film in the series. That makes it probably the most entertaining film in the series since the first film. …
Educated (2018) by Tara Westover
I’m not sure there’s a better word for this memoir than “harrowing.” So much about Westover’s story was shocking to me, shocking because of the behaviour of her family members, but shocking because this all takes place at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century in a country that …
Safety Last! (1923, Fred C. Newmeyer, Sam Taylor)
This is a mildly amusing romantic comedy with some decent stunts until it gets to the stunt the film is famous for, and then things pick up considerably.
Utopia (2013)
This is a hyper-stylized, science fiction-adjacent British conspiracy thriller that has feels really unique but slowly devolves into the kind of silly plotting you get in shows and movies where there are too many twists. I found the final episode of season 1 so frustrating that I will not be watching the second season. SPOILERS
Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017, Matthew Vaughn)
This has a similar vibe to the first movie, but is arguably more ridiculous. (Is that possible?) I feel like the gags aren’t quite as effective, or fresh, this time around. I still enjoyed myself, but the returns are diminishing.
The Mummy (2017, Alex Kurtzman)
This is a dull, fairly humourless new version of The Mummy which shows the perils of making a film for the purpose of starting a franchise, as opposed to making a film. It also begs the question, if the remake you are making is worse than the last remake, why bother making it?
Divergent (2014, Neil Burger)
YA science fiction movies are sooooo ridiculous. They’re all extremely similar in terms of plot and make the same obvious appeals to the vanity of young people. This one gets off to a gloriously unsubtle start, with a hilariously “high concept” post-apocalyptic society where there are inexplicable divisions that clearly don’t promote harmony but supposedly …
The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson (2017, David France)
This is a somewhat disjointed profile of two transgender activists posing as a true crime investigation into one of their deaths. It’s a bit of a mess as a film but I learned stuff.
Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre (2023, Guy Ritchie)
This is a bit of a slapdash heist ish film with a pretty high profile cast, seemingly not that great of a budget and, as Jenn put it, the MacGuffiniest MacGuffin. But I laughed.
Glengarry Glen Ross (1983) by David Mamet
I have seen the movie twice, at least, but a long time ago. The first time I saw it I was (more than) a little too young to fully appreciate it. The second time I saw it, though, I felt like everything Mamet was saying about American sales tactics in the early 1980s applied to …
Da hong denglong gaogao gua [Raise the Red Lantern] (1991, Yimou Zhang)
This is a mostly exceptional story of the fourth wife of a rich man in 1920s China. It is one of those films with such a distinct look it really doesn’t look like anything else.
Slow Horses (2022)
I’m always a little unsure of whether to review a series at the end of the first season if I know for sure there is more coming. But with shows where the second season hasn’t even premiered yet, I feel much more inclined if only because I’m not sure if I’ll get there. And given …
Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014, Matthew Vaughn)
This is an extremely entertaining, self-aware riff on Bond-type spy films via Get Smart. I really enjoyed it a lot and I want to rate it even higher than I did, only the CGI has dated horribly.
Travellin’ Band: Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall (2022, Bob Smeaton)
This is a rather bizarre documentary-cum-concert film that tries to be a brief history of CCR, a tour film, and a concert film all in one go. It doesn’t succeed at any of those three things though, in its second half, it gets closest to being just a pure concert film.
The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2006) by Michael Pollan
I found this book to be extremely frustrating and I almost gave up on it multiple times. The first four sections I really struggled with but I’m glad I stuck with it to the final section, which was far and away the best part of the book and reason to read it. It’s the kind …
The Diplomat (2023)
For a long time, the way I’ve reviewed TV shows is to review when when I’ve completed the show or when I’ve complete the first season – if I’m not sure I’ll continue – or when I give up. This strikes me as silly, mostly because it often takes me years to complete a show. …
Better Call Saul (2015)
This prequel to Breaking Bad is like the less violent, dark comedy step-brother to the original show, only this time the titular character isn’t a mild-mannered chemistry teach but rather a conman. So it’s Breaking Badder or Breaking More Bad but with a lot more farce. SPOILERS but of course
Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World (2017, Catherine Bainbridge, Alfonso Maiorana)
This is a survey of famous indigenous musicians to contribute to American popular music and their influence on music. Though a bit of a sponge when it comes to music history I definitely learned some stuff watching it.
Riley Drives from Portland to San Francisco Day 9 Sunday May 21, 2023
The Bay to Breakers was today. Something we were totally unaware of. We asked about how early we should leave and we were told it could take at least an hour to get to the airport with the road closures, even that early in the morning. So we left extra early.
Riley Drives from Portland to San Francisco Day 8 Saturday May 20, 2023
We headed in the direction of Telegraph Hill and found our way to Moe’s, a burger joint that had breakfasts. They have a bizarre rotating grill in the front window, which is probably more common than I think but I also couldn’t take my eyes off it. We had extremely heavy – typically American – …
6 Underground (2019, Michael Bay)
This is an at-times incomprehensible action comedy that is everything bad about Michael Bay films rolled into one movie. The saving grace, if it can be called that, is that the film is funny, at times, and it picks up in pace once it finally stops with the backstory.
Riley Drives from Portland to San Francisco Day 7 May Friday May 19, 2023
Staying in a B&B, we actually had our breakfast delivered to our door and could have had breakfast in bed, had we so chosen. (There was also a table.) So that was nice. (It was also a nice change from B&Bs where you eat at the dining room table with a bunch of other strangers. …
Black Adam (2022, Jaume Collet-Serra)
I don’t know anything about the source material for this movie. It’s possible, I guess, that this is one of the older comics, and so everything about it that feels stolen from other comics – which is basically all of it – isn’t actually stolen. But, it’s 2022, there have been an absolute ton of …
Riley Drives from Portland to San Francisco Day 6 Thursday May 18, 2023
The Best Western we stayed at in Eureka, didn’t just have a resort-esque pool area, they also had one of the better continental breakfasts I have encountered, which you could eat in said resort-esque pool area. Though they had the usual suspects, they also had a few things you’re more likely to find at a …
Riley Drives from Portland to San Francisco Day 5 Wednesday May 17, 2023
We had a very meagre continental breakfast and proceeded to get lost in Bandon, Oregon (population 3,300) trying to find Face Rock. (Yes, another rock. There are so many rocks along the Oregon coast. How do you determine which are worth looking at? Guidebooks, I guess. And arbitrary decisions.) Turns out there are a not …
Riley Drives from Portland to San Francisco Day 4 Tuesday May 16, 2023
We got breakfast at the Newport Cafe and I got to eat my first ever oyster omelette. We then headed back up the road to the Devil’s Punch Bowl. (Well, one of them…) Though it was often cloudy or hazy or foggy on the coast, and sometimes quite windy, it was never stormy. And on …
Riley Drives from Portland to San Francisco Day 3 Monday May 15, 2023
We had to set an alarm in order to get started. We walked across the road to a neat place called the Elephant Delicatessen, which is sort of like the Portland, non-Italian version of Pusateri’s. When we checkd out and booked a Lyft (since our cab was so expensive and the Red Line would take …
Riley Drives from Portland to San Francisco Day 2 Sunday May 14, 2023
We woke up relatively early – jet lag – but I slept pretty well this night (though not some future ones). We went to find a coffee shop and had some breakfast burritos. After breakfast, we walked up to Washington Park. We got a tiny bit lost on the way but we eventually found our …
Riley Drives from Portland to San Francisco Day 1 Saturday May 13, 2023
I’ve been on the west coast of the United States for the past week, fulfilling a tiny part of a lifelong dream of driving down the west coast of the Americas. This was only about 1200 kilometres of that dream, from Cannon Beach, Oregon, to San Francisco, but…baby steps. It’s the first proper road trip …
Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy (2016) by Cathy O’Neil
I should have read this when it came out. So much has happened since the book was published – it hasn’t rendered the book irrelevant so much as not detailed enough, not broad enough, and perhaps not as nuanced enough. Also, I need to tell you that I finished this book on a plane 9 …